I smiled to myself, remembering how I had once described it, described what I imagined it to be, to Daisy and two others at one of my womanly talks. “It’s like climbing a steep mountain at first. You warn yourself to stop, to turn back, but the top looks so inviting, and soon it becomes effortless. It’s more like sliding down now until . . .”

“Until what?” Faith Grover had asked in a breathless voice.

I had opened my eyes and looked from her to the others. Even Daisy was holding her breath now.

“Until you explode and explode until you think you’re going to die and love it all the way.”

“How can you love it if you think you’re going to die?” Mildred Petersen had asked.

“That’s the mystery. You’ll see. Someday maybe,” I’d added.

“How did you know all that?” Daisy had asked after the other two left. “You made it sound so real.”

“It’s not hard to imagine if you’re doing it right,” I’d said. Her eyes had looked like they were spinning. I’d smiled. “Don’t ask me to show you. Practice,” I’d said, and she had laughed the nervous laugh of a virgin, someone who had to first conquer fear to settle into pleasure. Whether it was evil of me or not, I had never had the fear.

I certainly didn’t now, even after making the cardinal mistake mostly made by foolish women, who, despite all they knew and all the warnings, thought, It won’t happen to me. Now that I was beyond caring, past that point of no return, I didn’t hold back. Yes, this was going to be different tonight, but there was nothing tentative about my lovemaking. If anything, I was so demanding Garland was the one to rush to finish. He looked like he thought he would die in my arms if he didn’t.

When he rolled over, he was laughing but also exclaiming how I might kill him with love.

“And to think you were a virgin,” he said.

“Only technically,” I replied. He thought that was very funny.

After a while, we were both quiet, clearly both exhausted.

“You had better get back to your room, or you’ll fall asleep beside me and shock your mother in the morning.”

“You just want to be sure I don’t come back at you,” I said, and he raised his hands in surrender.

“Now I’m happy that you will have your own bedroom after we’re married.”

“What? Why my own bedroom?”

“I like the idea of your being in your own room. I’ll have the room your parents are now in prepared as soon as they leave. It’s quite nice.”

“But why?”

“It will make our marriage more romantic and more exciting. Just like we just were because we’re doing this surreptitiously tonight. Don’t you see?